[287] οὐκ ἐν ἀργοῖς τοῦτο κατέλιπον would have meant, “I did not leave this among things neglected.” Soph. fuses the negative form with the positive, and instead of κατέλιπον writes ἐπραξάμην: “I saw to this (midd.) in such a manner that it also should not be among things neglected.” πράσσεσθαι (midd.) elsewhere usu. = “to exact” (Thuc. 4.65 etc.): here = διαπράσσεσθαι, effect for oneself. Cp. Soph. Aj. 45 “ἐξεπράξατο” (effected his purpose). G. Wolff, sharing Kviecpala's objections to the phrase ἐν ἀργοῖς πράσσεσθαι, places a point after τοῦτ᾽ (“but neither is this among things neglected: —I did it”). The extreme harshness of the asyndeton condemns this; and the suggested ἔπραξα μήν is no remedy. For ἐν cp. οὐκ ἐν ἐλαφρῷ ἐποιεύμην (Hdt. 1.118), ἐν εὐχερεῖ ι ἔθου (ταῦτα) Soph. Phil. 875, “ταῦτ᾽ οὖν ἐν αἰσχρῷ θέμενος” Eur. Hec. 806. ἀργοῖς, not things undone, but things at which the work is sluggish or tardy; Soph. OC 1605 “κοὐκ ἦν ἔτ᾽ οὐδὲν ἀργὸν ὧν ἐφίετο”: Eur. Phoen. 776 “ἓν δ᾽ ἐστὶν ἡμῖν ἀργόν, εἴ τι θέσφατον ι οἰωνόμαντις Τειρεσίας ἔχει φράσαι,” i.e. “in one thing our zeal has lagged, —the quest whether” etc.: Theognis however (583 Bergk 3rd ed.) has τὰ μὲν προβέβηκεν ἀμήχανόν ἐστι γενέσθαι ι ἀργά, = ἀποίητα, infecta.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.